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26 January 2014

Despite the complexities of tracing
families before surnames were acquired (generally not until the
nineteenth century in the Baltic region), the RIIS surname comes with
attached Estonian folklore —
folklore that explains why and how an early individual could
leave traces of his existence. I am doing my best with the newly
found "popular tradition" to decipher the weird syntax and
the personal and place names yielded by online translations. I don't
think it's time to call in a living, breathing translator for this
yet. The lineage has more pressing holes to address before connecting
to Tiit Kolgiks (see Part One).

Words and phrasings in quotation marks
are from the Estonian folkloric accounts, that is, the translations
thereof.

"Tiit Kolgiks" or "Tiit
Kolk" (born ca.1650) was the apparent progenitor of the family
in Baltic lands. It's said the man was a Swedish knight-soldier;
there's mention of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). He came to a
place in what is now Estonia, a village called Sandra on the Raudna
river, in a large area called Viljandi. Whatever his real name was,
the people there called him Tiit Kolgiks. The two countries as we
know them, Estonia and Latvia, were long known as Livonia. The
Great Northern War (1700-1721) was a power struggle between the
Swedish and Russian empires whereby the Swedes lost control of
Livonia.

A little early for my purpose but nevertheless; bennosfiguresforum.com

Tiit was legendary for his fine
clothing, magnificent boots (always with spurs), and big handsome
horses with fancy harness —
the man definitely had resources. Tiit built himself a large
wooden house with glass windows which had never been seen before; the
dwelling was also fortified, including a portcullis gate that was
closed at night and raised every morning. If you have never used
online translation from a foreign language, I give you a sample:

He
made yourself into a wooden house with a spacious and large glass
windows to put down, which at the time before the thing was seeing.

Tiit's
grand house sounds almost like a manor house itself. Historically,
the Vastemöisa
estate, one of the oldest in Livonia, was located in the old county
of Viljandi (Viljandimaa) and parish of Suure-Jaani; there were
twelve manor estates in the parish. Each
estate would also have a number of farms.

Additional information becomes more
puzzling. Tiit fell one day while working on horseback, "driving
a large mallet." The resulting injury to his hip (lameness?)
prompted the nickname "Old Kolk." I had a great deal
of trouble with that word kolk; no
particular language was owning up to it until Wolfram|Alpha said it means hip in Slovenian. Our
man was apparently real enough because his birth and death "may
still be seen on the grave" ―
at
least whenever that was written ―
but no specific year or age is now known.

That's
about the extent of the man's personal information that I can extract
from the trees on Geni, supplemented with links to archival and
local history websites. All the accounts of Tiit use more or less the
same words and phrasing; I can't be certain yet but they seem to
derive from an unnamed page related to the URL of the Tartu
Observatoorium website.[1]

Based
on practices in other countries, his being a soldier and possibly a
knight could indicate his Viljandi lands were a reward for military
service. In the 1600s the Swedish Empire extended over all of Livonia
and further south.

If we
accept a mid-seventeenth century birth year for Tiit, and the
existence of an adult son in 1690, then Tiit would have been
integrated into his chosen surroundings well before the end of that
century. I'm thinking from the information so far that the man likely
died before the Great
Northern War, and possibly before 1690 ―
a theory to be explained in due course.

It's worth a digression to mention that
the concept of manors, or estates, developed here in the Middle Ages
during the Crusades. Christianity only came to the region in the
thirteenth century with the Livonian
Order of Knights (part of the Teutonic Order). With the influx of
robust bishops and knight-led retainers, the first estates were
organized ―
hence the predominant
Germanic influence. Thus the native peasants were managed by loyal
"vassals" of the landowners. Over the next few centuries
manor estates became an all-enveloping way of life.

Kabala Manor house in Rapla parish, 17th century example; Wikipedia

The
Livonian War that took place in the middle of the 16th century left
local strongholds in ruins, but at the same time, it boosted the
development of manors. Side by side with the disappearance of the
Order and bishoprics, the former vassals began to play an
increasingly important role in the local state arrangement. Nobility
associations known as knighthoods performed in Estonia (in the whole
of Old Livonia) local government functions up until World War I. The
so-called knight manor ... became the main type
of manors,
the owner of which had a number of status-related rights along with
many stately responsibilities. The number of manors had grown to
around a thousand by the 18th century.[2]

Needless to say,
the Baltic region has always been a site of conquest between
warring powers. Despite intermittent bloody battles and changes in
overlords, locally managed government generally continued. So the
scenario of "knights" arriving periodically to settle and
establish farms has historical legs.

This strange tale has developed a life
of its own. I shall have to continue into yet another blog post.

[1]
The direct URL is http://www.aai.ee/~urmas/aba/abaja1.html (accessed
14 January 2014). But if one goes to the Tartu
Observatoorium
website (http://www.aai.ee/) it seems impossible to find the page.
Töravere
Observatory seems to be another name for the institution.

20 January 2014

The Book of Me as Written by You
Me has its rewards. Above all it keeps me from noticing how I've
lapsed on things genealogical. While
I struggle with delayed but more edifying posts, this makes a welcome
distraction. It also allows for as much cringing self-exposure
(or silliness) as one's nature permits, along with the liberating
thought that no-one on the interweeblies is forced to read our
exposés.

Special People (Prompt 14).
Repeat the suggestions for Prompt 13. Uh oh. More socializing and
food. But this time it's for ANCESTORS.
So I can't invite a few old boyfriends out of simple curiosity ("and
how did your
life turn out with that boring bottle-blonde you married on the
rebound?").

First off, I do want to say I am
grateful to all the ancestors for their contributions to the
family gene pool, making the present generations what they are.
Speaking for myself, I would have appreciated fewer freckles and a
lot more energy chromosomes. But thank you for good bone density, low
cholesterol, and a healthy liver.

The invitation they cannot refuse (and
by the way, they are not all direct-line people; aren't siblings and
collaterals the most willing to spill the family dirt?) ―

* Number one, my Dad so he can tell me
about his life before I knew him;

* Eiwertil Riis my purported
7th-great-grandfather born ca.1670 in Viljandi region, Estonia; he
has some 'splaining to do about his legendary father.

Hits a nice balance between my Celtics
and my Baltics, don't you think? Eight seems quite enough to keep me
occupied, frantically recording their stories in between hugs and
tears.

We shall have a picnic, I think. I will
order up a perfect day on Lake Superior. Lolling about on chairs and
blankets and cushions near a beach, no-one will be able to escape my
probing questions now that they see I too am a bona fide grownup.
I've always wanted to try making that 7-layer terrine I scrounged
from a French magazine about forty years ago: very complicated,
layers of chopped chicken, spinach, ham slices, asparagus, boiled
egg, paté,
une petite tomate
ferme, and so on —
one brilliant tour de
force encompassing the
major food groups with massive doses of mayo to hold it all together.
Don't look at me like that. Come on, it's not like these guests
really have to
worry about food poisoning. This could take place around the end of
June so the only extras we need are some baguettes and strawberries
with lots of whipped cream (dairy = calcium).

Oh, who got me started on the foodie
thing. Naff off. Now.

wildtextures.com

Snow (Prompt 15) What a relief.
A complete non-sequitur. Easy. Snow is white and cold and I had
enough of it growing up in northwestern Ontario and Manitoba to last
a lifetime. Now it has followed me the odd winter into the city's
geodome. Apart from the fact that most winters are odd these days.
Unfortunately summers too can be odd lately.

Look, I'm trying to find something good
here to say about snow. It's for young people, isn't it. That's what
I've decided. Skating and skiing. Toboggans. Frostbite. Should I even
mention ski-doos? Well, I did my share; then I moved on. There's a
lot to be said for comforts like fireplaces or heading south whenever
possible.

Message in a Bottle (Prompt 16)
... be serious! Write a message that a stranger somewhere in time and
space might discover? For sure my bottle would go into Lake
Superior in the expectation it would transit through the Great Lakes
out the Gulf of St. Lawrence into the Gulf Stream and end up in
Murmansk or maybe bobbing along the west coast of Africa; who knows —
what with the aforesaid weather doing its own independent and
undependable thing.

What could possibly be said to enrich
(or baffle) that unknown recipient for an instant? Should it be
treated like a teaching moment? No, too much like ubiquitous,
annoying tweets. Makes one think along the lines of Chinese fortune
cookies or perhaps epitaphs:

‒ No
rest for the wicked[1]

‒ Living
well is the best revenge[2]

‒ It
must have been the effect of a nutmeg tart[3]

‒ Trust
in Allah, but tie up your camel[4]

‒ It's
over. It's O-O-O-VER![5]

And
so forth. I really don't expect the stranger will care one way or
another about footnotes. On that note the editorial we
are collapsing till next time.

[1]
Attributed to The Book of Isaiah in two different chapters.

[2]
The irrepressible Dorothy Parker.

[3]
Joseph Finsbury (Sir Ralph
Richardson) in The
Wrong Box, on the
cause of death of his brother.

[4]
Sumaiya Kazi, 16 Jan 2012 on
Google+.

[5]
Probably said a trillion times but Roy Orbison sang it like an
aaaaangel!

07 January 2014

Somehow, some time ago, a distant
cousin pulled me into the Geni networking website. I cooperated on
the initial level, thinking this would give me a leg up on Latvian
ancestors that turned into Estonian ancestors because
I don't know the languages and can barely navigate Saaga,
the excellent Estonia archival site of digitized historical and
genealogical records.

For me, the Geni learning curve was
rather steep. I didn't find their mechanisms particularly
user-friendly. Therefore, much tearing of hair to straighten out the
craziness that either I or the cyber gods had manipulated on my
fledgling family tree: my ex-husband was shown as my father, my
father was my brother, and such-like nonsense. The
connection had to be shown because timewise, the Riis family is a
very long way from someone with the names Dougall and Merriman. The
process was compounded, naturally, by the struggle to communicate
with others pursuing the same family.

The
newest information on one direct line is pieced together from
numerous offerings on the site. I do not know the contributors nor
their research habits but few have cited specific sources of
information. The exercise is for my own clarity, for what it's
worth. Mistakes herein with spelling in noun cases and
diacritic marks are solely my melancholy responsibility.

What I knew in advance through reliable
research (not mine) in Latvian and Estonian records —
population schedules of farms and Lutheran church registers —
was that my great-great-grandfather Janis (aka Jaan, Jahn) JURIKAS
was baptized 24 June 1793 in Tori parish, now Estonia, son of Jűrri
and Ann Jurikas of the Alliko farm.[1]
Janis married Liso RIIS
about 1813-1814. She was born in 1794 on the Vastemöisa
estate in Suure-Jaani, a parish to the east of Tori.[2]
"Estates" were also known as manors. They were generally
owned by upper-class Baltic Germans, Baltendeutsche,
whose families had generations of residency. A parish, so-called,
might be a religious or a civil administrative entity.

Janis
moved his family from farms on one estate to another over a
forty-five year period, traced in six different estate records, also
known as "revision lists" because they would be amended
from time to time to show migrations and other notations. A little
more on that here. It was unusual in the early nineteenth century for
a peasant to make such changes unless the next estate was owned by
the same landlord (not the case in his journey). The children's
baptisms in different places also reflect the family movements.

mapsof.net

Estonia
and northern Latvia as we know them today were, in that time, a
province of the Russian empire. There were no geographical or
political boundaries as such between them in Janis' day. We can only make guesses
at why he kept moving (or was allowed to move). Family lore
speaks of his rebellious nature, his small acts of disobedience
against the stifling restrictions of peasant life. His later
conversion to the Orthodox faith (more in a prior post) supports this
portrait.

On
Geni, the generations from JURIKAS
back to RIIS
accelerated into
multiple greats. At least seven researchers have input and/or agreed
on the lineage (a happenstance that does not make it so!).
Herewith, in brief, the bare information from my "Merge Center"
on Geni with its linked connections —
at face value for now.

The
"sources" above are merely my quick summaries from the
individual profiles. Online translation programs are a daunting
experience, trying to making sense of the resulting gabble! It's
clear to me that some types of records revealed the specific dates of
death but they aren't mentioned. Approximate years of birth were
calculated from a man's age as an adult on an estate or tax list. The
timeline back to Hans looks plausible but things get even fuzzier
after that. While potential sources for all vital events such as
baptisms and burials have perhaps not been uncovered (wouldn't it be
gratifying to see some marriages!) religious records are scarce
before the mid-eighteenth century.

Preliminary
evaluation only shows the obvious holes. My admiration is boundless
for those family historians who doggedly overcome the difficulties of
tracing people with no surnames in a foreign country, foreign
language, in the eighteenth century and earlier.

The
folklore about Tiit Kolk and his origins is interesting, to be
investigated for another post. There's work to be done on geography
and history and records and the language barrier. Eight greats may
begin to materialize ghost-like but require much more substance to be
real or true.